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switch to vBulletion or not?

Would you agree with forum change to vBulletin?

  • No! Stay with existing PHPBB!

    Votes: 4 25.0%

  • Yes! Let's go to vBulletin!

    Votes: 12 75.0%
  • Total voters
    16
odklizec

odklizec

PK
Hi folks,

After 5 months of running this forum I'm seriously thinking about conversion of existing forum to vBulletin system :D There is nothing wrong with current PHPBB forum, except that there are not much professional and officially supported MODs.

When I started with RicohForum, I did not expect too high (if any) traffic and therefore I selected free phpbb. You know, to minimize losses. But it seems the forum now becomes popular and I would like to extend it with some new great features. I would like to offer you features like user galleries, blogs or even image file hosting! But because there are no such tools available for existing forum, my hands are tied. And if I would like to convert this forum to something more professional, it's better to do it now than later (after significant increase of registered users, discussions and attached files). However, this forum system switch will lead to completely to completely different users interface. And the question is, how much you like the current system and how big problem would be to get into new interface?

So what do you guys think of it? Would it be a good idea to switch this forum to professional (paid) vBulletin system? Many photographic forums are running on this forum system (including our fellow site GR FanClub). Feel free to let me know your opinion on this.

For some examples of vBulletin powered boards and galleries, see for example these:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/index.php
http://www.fourthirdsphoto.com/vbb/index.php
http://ricoh.grfan.net/forum.php
http://www.dgrin.com/
 
Thanks for tip Leews! I don't think any non-commercial solution will do the trick. Even the phpbb is apparently not powerful enough and this is a very good board system. I never heard about NextBBS so I would be really surprised if it would be more powerful than vBulletin or even phpbb?;) But I will definitely check it.
 
Thanks for link! This comparison more or less confirms my experience with these boards. Only IPB and VB have [YES] for all features. But this comparison does not show all available options and possibilities of these board systems. VB and IPB have an optional gallery and blog modules and many others professional mods, which are not available for PHPBB. I was about to use VB from the first time I thought about RicohForum. But because I was not sure if the people will like it, I was not so keen to purchase the license. Now I'm banging my head to the wall because the PHPBB to VB switch may not be easy and problem free. I already converted and installed several forums, but not yet phpbb3 to vb.
 
Hello everyone,

I'm new here & the proud new owner of a Ricoh GX100 (my decision to get it was helped by what I read & the photos I looked at on this forum... thanks guys). I've only just started to explore the joys of this camera & am also fairly new to the world of digital photography. Hopefully I'll get some photos up on the site soon.

It would be great if there was a user gallery as "odklizec" has mentioned - this is a site that I feel inspired by every time I open it, http://www.contaxg.com/ it's powered by "siteframe" http://siteframe.org/ - just a suggestion.

Thanks "odklizec" for starting such a great forum! :)
 
I don't mind what you already have here, but if moving to vBulletin gives you a chance to do what you want to do with the forum into the future, then I say go for it!

Oh, and thanks for providing those links to other sites running vBulletin - I added some of them to my bookmarks for future reading :)
 
Thanks for your comments guys! I'm definitely planning to go to vbulletin. I already tried to buy a license from someone who sold his old and no longer used license. But in the end, it appeared to be just another scam :( My bad. I had to buy a new version for full price instead of trying to get it cheaper. VBulletin should definitely help me with some problems that are not currently solvable with phpbb. And the gallery is one of them.
 
i think we need to move forward with what we(you.....pavel)have here....its a great forum but if you could add all the features you have mentioned then it would be a fantastic forum! i'm gonna vote a positive yes.....thanks for consulting us for our opinions, while i dont understand any of the tech speak im sure this will be a good step in the right direction....all the best ....M
 
I've just received the VB license! Now I will have to find some time to install and setup it and do some test conversions before the final forum transfer. Hope there will be no problems?

Oh and I need a little help from you guys! Could you please check the below link and tell me if you like the galleries displayed here?
http://www.photopost.com/sitesphp.html
This gallery software is the most recommended gallery addition to VB forum. So please check these example galleries and eventually tell me, which style you like best? I cannot recommend I will be able to get the same visual/graphics style, but it would be nice to know your preference as you will be the end users ;)
 
The one that appealed to me the most was Fred Miranda's. A big factor is the appropriate background colour (dark, but not black).
 
I too liked the fred miranda one and also the mens tennis....both are different but the pictures stand out and are eye catching on the background...are the menu systems different on all of these sites?...how do they work?....M
 
fred miranda will be good for photos. (or gamersgallery or les paul)

the current color theme is good for text. easy on the eyes.
i always find it tiring to stare at light color text on dark background :p
 
Hi all, my two pennies from long time reader first time contributor (sounds like I am on talkback radio..) I really like the existing layout. Clean and uncluttered. I hope the new layout will be equally appealing. All the ones on the links appear a touch busy. Thanks for the great work with this site, it's a great resource. :) - richard from new zealand (grd1)
 
Hi Richard,

Thank you for your input! Well, after almost two years of existence of this board, I decided to stick with phpbb ;) It's already heavily customized and some more improvements are planned. Converting it to vBulletin would be an enormous and very risky job. And I could not promise that it would look as clean and smooth as it looks now. So, I would rather focus on improving existing board. The first step will be updating the board with the latest phpbb 3.0.5. This will be the first major step before implementing new features (like so long promised gallery). Wish me luck! ;)
 
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